"You die now, Earthling!" snarled the guard-chief. "Here, beneath the rollers, by Lord Zenaor's own orders."
He stepped aside as he spoke. A great, bulbous sphere rolled slowly past him through the doorway.
Instinctively, Craig fell back a step.
"Stop him!" barked the guard-chief.
The words crackled. Two hard-faced loungers by the rear wall sprang forward.
Inside Craig Nesom, something snapped. It came to him, of a sudden, that here lay the answer to all his tension and loneliness and homeland hunger. Here, channeled into rage and bruising violence....
With a curse, he smashed a fist square into the face of the foremost of his assailants. A hoarse cry of anguish burst from the man's throat. He crashed back across the nearest table.
Like lightning, the hand of the second flashed to an ornate belt-dagger.
Craig lunged for him in chill, surging fury. Savagely, he drove his elbow into the soft flesh below the other's rib-casing.
The man reeled—retching, knife forgotten.